The Role of Culture

Culture:

-          Value

-          Behaviors

-          Culture

-          Beliefs

-          Attitude

-          Customs

Characteristics of Culture

Ø  Learned behavior

Ø  Interrelated elements

Ø  Adaptive

Ø  Shared

Elements of Culture

-          Language

-          Social structure

-          Communication

-          Value/ attitude

-          Religion

Social Structure

•          Individuals, families, and groups

•          Social stratification – categorization based on birth, occupation, educational achievements

•          Social mobility – ability to move from one stratum of society to another

Language

•          3000+ different languages worldwide

•          10,000+ different dialects

•          Primary delineator of cultural groups

•          Lingua Franca

Forms of Nonverbal Communication_1

•          Hand gestures

•          Facial expression

•          Posture and stance

•          Clothing/ hair style

•          Walking behavior

•          Interpersonal distance

•          Touching

•          Eye contact

•          Architecture/ Interior design

•          Artifacts and non-verbal symbols

•          Graphic symbols 

Forms of Nonverbal Communication_2

•          Art and rhetorical forms

•          Smell

•          Speech rate, pitch, inflection, volume

•          Color symbolism

•          Synchronization of speech and movement

•          Taste, symbolism of food, oral gratification

•          Cosmetics

•          Sound signals

•          Time symbolism

•          Timing and pauses

•          Silence

Religion

•          Christianity

–        Catholicism

–        Protestant

–        Eastern Orthodox

•          Islam

•          Hinduism

•          Buddhism

Values and Attitudes

•          Values: accepted principles and standards

•          Attitudes: actions, feelings, and thoughts that result from values

Theories of Culture

•          Hall’s Low-Context, High-Context Approach

•          Cultural Cluster Approach

•          Hofstede’s Five Dimensions

Understanding New Cultures

•          Self-reference criterion

•          Cultural literacy

•          Acculturation